THEA at Metropolis — Local services in Los Angeles

I am writing a review because I tried to resolve these issues directly without it being public, but 2 months is way too long of a time for me to be paying high rent and not getting anything resolved. All your responses to reviews on here direct residents to contact you. Please contact me as I am tired of contacting you.

Since the first week, I reported an issue with the guest bathroom toilet, which does not flush properly. A maintenance person visited, but after inspecting the toilet, they claimed there was no problem. Having used toilets extensively in my life, I am confident in my ability to distinguish between a properly functioning and malfunctioning toilet. I explained the issue and compared the flush with the main bathroom toilet. The maintenance person mentioned needing approval from upper management to address the problem and assured me they would contact me afterward.

It’s unclear to me why approval would be required for a simple toilet repair, but I was willing to wait. However, I have not received any follow-up communication. After waiting about a week and a half, I reached out for another inspection. This time, I had to repeat my explanation to a different maintenance person. They told me they would address the issue the following day, but I received no response for another two weeks.

Then, Thea called to confirm if I had submitted a maintenance request. I reiterated the situation, and another maintenance person came to assess the issue, only to explain the same steps as before. This person agreed to contact me by the end of the day. However, after a week, no one has shown up to fix the toilet.

As I approach the two-month mark of my lease, the guest bathroom toilet still has flushing issues, which has caused discomfort for my guests who have had to repeatedly flush and witness the struggle of waste attempting to move through the pipes.

If another person is sent to "check the problem" without fixing the issue on the visit, I would be furious.

The 9th-floor deck is consistently left with dog waste on the grass and walkway. While I understand this is a pet-friendly facility, it would be greatly appreciated if the area were cleaned more frequently, especially considering the additional pet fees collected from residents.

The Stairmaster has been out of order for over two weeks, despite notifying the leasing agent.

The benches in the gym are quite old, and seats are falling apart. I reported this two weeks ago, but no action has been taken.

The available dumbbells only go up to 55lbs, which limits the range of exercises for residents.

The new cable machine, which replaced the old one, is of poor quality. The wires do not move smoothly, affecting the overall workout experience.

As a side note, parking on the 8th floor has been extremely challenging. I requested to be moved to a lower floor, but my request was denied. There are only 11 electric vehicle charging spots available for a building with over 50 stories, and many residents do not move their vehicles after charging. This makes it nearly impossible to charge my car.

Meanwhile, residents in other buildings have access to lower-floor parking, where there are plenty of open spots. However, these spaces are not made available to residents of Thea. Additionally, there is often available charging on the 1st to 3rd floors, but those spots are restricted to residents of the other buildings. Charging priority is given to the lower floors first, meaning that residents of other buildings receive faster charging. Once they finish, the remaining power trickles up to the higher floors, where I’ve experienced charging times of over 24 hours on the 5th floor, due to the lower priority given to residents of Thea.

I trust these matters will be addressed promptly, as they are impacting my experience as a resident. I look forward to your response and to seeing these issues resolved.

Thank you for your attention to...

My experience with THEA has been one of the most difficult journey that I experienced so far. While they have strengths and weaknesses, the weaknesses overwhelmed me beyond reasonable doubt that gave me no choice but to find a better place for myself and my partner. This complex looks high-end from the street, but in my experience, once you’re living here the underlying issues become apparent.

Here are some of the positives points of THEA:

-Nice amenities like 24 hour gym, working sauna , and a pool that is worth taking a dip in. They really try to keep the place well maintained which I noticed and appreciated.

-Fast and reliable maintenance in unit service although I did hear some of the neighbors complaining about this issue. This has not been the case for me however.

-Nice and clean 2020s interior.

Negatives points of THEA:

-Safety. We did not feel safe living here. This was one of the main reason why we felt the need to move. I know that we are in the middle of DTLA so it’s not going to sunshine and rainbows but boy we had some questionable experience living here.

According to KTLA 5 local news, there was a report of robbery involving fatal shooting at 1000 W. 8th St. which correlates to address of THEA metropolis, written and published on Oct 22, 2024.

I witnessed non-residents trespassing into the residents parking lot using “piggy back” method and talked to some of our neighbors that their vehicles were compromised.

Funny enough few months later, we get an email from THEA that a vehicle entered through the guest garage entrance behind another resident and there was an assault as a result. This was the final draw that we need to get out.

-Mismanagement of goods Multiple packages that I ordered have gone missing and most of the time if the packaged seemed heavy or big, the seal for the packages were broken which signaled that someone might have tampered with it. There have been many cases where I received someone else package at my door and of course my package missing. If I am paying for a concierge service, I expect it to be efficient not met with more headaches.

-Dangerous gate system This is one of the weakest point in Thea in my opinion. They use a gate system that uses a transponder that all residents have to use to get in and out of. Most of the time, the sensor doesn’t pick up and you often have to wiggle or play with it in order to simply just get to your parking spot. This often causes traffic to get inside the house.

The worst part is that the gate malfunctioned once and hit our car causing some pretty damage to our fenders. I will attach pictures for clarification. We let management know and as I expected they were quick to dismiss and never get back to us even though we followed up constantly for months, endlessly blaming their the higher ups. This was another blow to us where it solidified our decision to move out.

-Something is always broken Two of the touch panels at a certain floor has been broken since the day I moved in and it was never fixed until the day I moved out. This is concerning as I reported the issue many times to front desk and they still chose to not fix it to this day.

-Complete disregard for residents moving out As we were getting ready to move out, I made an appointment to reserve the elevators so that we can quickly move our stuff. Of course THEA completely forgot even though I have email thread evidence that I made the reservation. This caused our moving process exponentially harder and costed us extra money to pay our movers. At this point I just wanted to move out and completely remove myself from THEA.

And finally...

As expected, THEA somehow managed to send our deposit to the wrong address to give us one last headache before finally...

As someone who has lived at Thea for nearly two years, I just want to tell everyone: Do not choose this apartment. I won’t deny that Thea has some relatively decent facilities and basic amenities, and their maintenance service is prompt, but once you actually move in, you’ll realize that this is nothing more than a gold-plated mess.

Here, I will briefly explain why you should avoid living here and why you should ignore those fake 5-star reviews. Instead, take a look at the negative reviews (you’ll notice it’s either 5 stars or 1 star, which is suspiciously odd and indicative of how bad this place would be without those fake 5-star reviews).

Reason 1: The Parking Garage Design is Terrible If you don’t purchase valet parking, you’ll most likely be assigned parking on the 6th, 7th, or 8th floor. This means you’ll spend an extra 10 minutes every day navigating 12 turns just to go up or down. It’s truly exhausting. Imagine dealing with this every single day. I even applied to pay extra to move to the 3rd, 4th, or 5th floor, but my requests were completely ignored. For nearly 20 months, I’ve had to endure this daily ordeal. What’s worse, you’ll notice the lower levels of the parking garage are never fully occupied—it’s clear they’re deliberately assigning you to the upper levels to make your life miserable.

Reason 2: Poor Communication After Signing the Lease Once you’ve signed your lease, getting in touch with the apartment agents becomes extremely difficult. Can you guarantee you’ll never need to contact them again after moving in? Probably not. However, the general atmosphere here is: you won’t be able to reach anyone. For example:

You need to request a parking space change. You send 10 emails with no reply or get vague responses. You were only given one key upon signing and want to request an extra. You’re moving out, and they withhold your deposit, deduct extra charges, or the terms are unclear. In these scenarios, you’ll get no help at all. Sure, you can go downstairs to argue with them or send 100 emails, but that’s the level of effort you’ll need to get a response.

Reason 3: Referral Program is a Scam I referred four friends to this apartment, two of whom ended up signing a lease (and for that, I’m truly sorry because I was young and naive, unaware of how bad this apartment really is). They promised me a $1,800 referral bonus, but to this day, I haven’t received it. I tried communicating with them about it, but to no avail—absolutely shameless. The 3 months of free parking they promised me when I moved in? Never received that either. A friend who referred me to Thea had to argue with them for nearly 5 months before he got his money. Since then, many friends have asked me how living at Thea is and whether they should move in. I’ve strongly advised them to stay away, even if it means giving up the referral bonus. Thankfully, they took my advice.

Final Thoughts I hope my experience can help more people. Trust me, you may be tempted by the seemingly nice public facilities, but I must tell you that these are the last things you should focus on. High-end apartments all do a good job in this regard. Instead, you should pay attention to the hidden problems you can’t see right away.

I sincerely hope this helps you, and I stand by my complaint against this terrible...